The liveries for all the 2022 F1 cars are out, and after an unhealthy amount of just staring at them, here are my cars ranked by their looks and not their personalities ... which are lovely, I'm sure.
10 Haas VF-22
The American-based team has ditched main sponsor Uralkali because of the conflict in Ukraine, but other than that the livery remains the same. When you consider that they pretty much halted any work on their 2021 car in favour of working on this one, but couldn’t be bothered to give us something new to look at, it’s kind of disappointing.
It’s all white … Fascinating …
9 Red Bulls RB18
Yawn … the Austrian-based team has stuck with pretty much the same livery they have had since 2016. It is the bog standard design we’ve come to expect from them - the navy blue with a bit of yellow and red - and with the exception of one or two updated sponsors, is almost identical to what they raced in last year.
Remember when they had a splash of purple on their cars. Pepperidge Farm remembers …
8 AlphaTauri AT03
In a world of metallic paint, and elbowed greased shine, there is something to note about the matte approach to the AT03. While the rest of the paddock has gone for glitz and glamour, with a chance of regurgitation, the workman Alpha has a clean look to it. It’s as safe as houses with an inoffensive blue and white design, I guess, but it won’t win any modern art exhibitions.
Or maybe it could? Not sure what that says about my take on modern art.
7 McLaren MCL36
Yes, orange, blue and black do go together as far as colour schemes go, but could the Woking-based outfit not rearrange those colours just a smidge more to give us something new, different, exciting.
No, is the answer, and much like Red Bull and Haas, the McLaren scores low for no new innovation in their livery design. Thankfully, their pre-season testing seems to have been better than their attempt at something passable to look at.
6 Alpine A522
Initially, the Renault was much higher on this list but then the more you look at it, the more overwhelming it becomes. It gets its spot because someone was brave enough to just go for it and mix blue with sponsor BWT’s pink, and for that it surely should get kudos. The French-based team also gave us not one, but two liveries – there is an all pink version of the A522 that is so kitsch, you can only love it.
Just don’t stare at it too long, because you probably will regret it. Thankfully, when it blitzes past, you won’t have to stare at it for an extended period.
5 Mercedes W13
I’m probably going to get a bit of flak for the new Merc being this low, because it is a handsome machine to look at. And we can finally call it a Silver Arrows unironically after a couple of years of that sexy black design, which I preferred and probably why it’s sitting here at mid-grid. The splashes of red are nice on an otherwise clinically designed livery.
It’s not ugly to look at, but perhaps just a bit too German.
4 Williams FW44
Sometimes, less is more, and this is certainly the case with the new design philosophy of Williams this year. In 2021, they had striped blues, a white front, and a black rear, with a stripe of yellow here and there. It was all a bit garish.
This year, it’s a slick blue design, with a touch of red, that shouts: “Our new investor money has been cleared by the bank and is in our account.”
3 Alfa Romeo C42
Okay, fair enough, the new Alfa isn’t a massive deviation from what we saw last year, but it is Italian, it is an Alfa, and it is red, black and white … nuff said.
2 Aston Martin AMR22
Sure, it is the same colour scheme as last year, but the new Aston is fire. It’s the lines, methinks, the ebb and flow of the chassis design, all punctuated by the yellow trim, and the black underskirt that it teases. If it drives as good as it looks then the AMR22 could be the dream we have been waiting for – Sebastian Vettel winning another GP, and looking dapper as hell doing it.
1 Ferrari F1-75
I mean, have you looked at it … well, just look at it … Yoh, that car is hot, so hot that you’d suspect that whoever touches it, must make a sizzling noise when doing so. Like a tight dress, or the skinny jeans I wore in the early noughties, everything seems to be accentuated in the right places by the livery design. It harkens back to Ayrton Senna-era Ferrari and that is already enough to get the heart a-flutter.
“But, boet,” I hear you say, “It looks like a Ferrari that we see every year.” To which I will simply respond: “Brah. IT. IS. A. FERRARI.”
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